Khross wrote:
The Nobel Prizes ostensibly exist to reward and help fund the innovators in scientific and social fields who might not otherwise find patronage.
No it was a guilt-stricken man's last ditch effort to save his good name.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/medica ... istory.htmQuote:
In 1888, Alfred was astonished to read his own obituary, titled ‘The merchant of death is dead’, in a French newspaper. As it was Alfred's brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered. This inspired him to change his will.[5] On 10 December 1896 Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 63 years old.[6]
To widespread astonishment, Nobel's last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature.[7] Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime. The last was written over a year before he died, signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895.[8][9] Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million SEK (c. US$186 million in 2008), to establish the five Nobel Prizes.[10] Because of scepticism surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that it was approved by the Storting in Norway.[11] The executors of Nobel's will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobel's fortune and organise the award of prizes.[12]
Nobel's instructions named a Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize, the members of whom were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organisations were established. These were the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June.[13] The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded, and in 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly-created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II.[7] In 1905, the Union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved. Thereafter Norway's Nobel Committee was responsible for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and the Swedish institutions retained responsibility for the other prizes.[11]
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Quote:
In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin